Confess: Colleen Hoover

Blurb: At age twenty-one, Auburn Reed has already lost everything important to her. In her fight to rebuild her shattered life, she has her goals in sight and there is no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.

For once, Auburn takes a chance and puts her heart in control, only to discover that Owen is keeping a major secret from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.

To save their relationship, all Owen needs to do is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin.

Review: I hadn’t even made it beyond the prologue, wasn’t at even 3% yet and I already had enough tears going that I could hardly read the words. This is a pretty emotionally intense book, though it does let up enough to not leave you feeling constantly torn up.

The only reason I didn’t rate this higher was because I really kind of needed more at the end. It just felt unfinished. Sure, there is an awful lot that a reader can assume, but I prefer things to be tied up a bit more than this rather than left open, so I was just a bit frustrated by that. More so because this is a new adult book and the point in our characters’ lives is kind of unsettled anyway and not getting some idea as to how that resolves irritated me.

The story itself, outside of the lack of full resolution (which other than my personal preference wasn’t a bad thing), was beautifully written. It is probably because I was enjoying both Owen and Auburn’s characters so much that I wasn’t thrilled with the end. I wanted the chance to get to know them more.